“Rereading: Mafalda”, documentary series directed by filmmaker Lorena Muñoz that reviews the origins, almost global expansion and validity of the classic comic character created by Quino, will be available in full this Wednesday at the Disney+ and Star+ platforms.
Born six decades ago as an advertising assignment for an appliance company, that progressive, feminist and protesting girl, Concerned about the elusive world peace, in love with the Beatles and a staunch enemy of soup, she became an icon over time.
Initially, Mafalda took place in the privacy of a city apartment, with a story that was reduced to her often complex bond with His father was an office worker and his mother was a housewife. The success of its publication, from September 1964 in Primera Plana to move less than a year later to the newspaper El Mundo, led to the growth of its unforgettable gallery of characters: first Felipe, then Manolito, then Susanita.
Portrait of the Buenos Aires middle classes, generated universal identification. It was published in more than 30 languages and became as popular in Argentina as in Latin America, Spain, France, Greece and Italy. It was collected in all kinds of books and notebooks, It also moved to animated format and color cinema; She even appeared on a news program (Telefe Noticias had her as a daily “columnist” in 2017).
“When they asked me to direct this series, of course I The first thing I said was yes, immediately,” Muñoz recalls. in conversation with Télam. With “Rereading: Mafalda” the filmmaker adds a new chapter to her list of titles inspired by real artists or popular figures (among them the documentary about Ada Falcón “I don’t know what your eyes have done to me”, 2003; and the biographical fictions “Gilda, I do not regret this love”, 2016; and “El Potro, the best of love”, 2018).
Muñoz confesses that the character “accompanied her during childhood”, but that she herself discovered during the process of the series aspects of her story that she was unaware of: “For example, that Mafalda originally had an older brother. That’s something she didn’t have the slightest idea,” she admits.
With production from Non Stop, the project for the series was conceived when Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón -as Quino was called, who died at the age of 88 in Mendoza in September 2020 – was still alive.
With the recovery of valuable unpublished material and interviews with members of the author’s inner circle, the series traces the history of Mafalda, and with it that of Quino himself as an artist: what inspired him and how his work evolved, in addition to the impact that had in the comic.
For this reason, the exclusive testimony of graphic comedians such as Maitena, Liniers, Montt, Tute, Rep, Kemchs and Raquel Riba Rossi.
But Mafalda also left – and leaves – its mark on the general public and on culture, as demonstrated by some personalities who participated in the series, such as Darío Barassi, Agustín “Soy Rada” Aristarán, Mariana Fabbiani, Consuelo Duval, Paty Cantú, Santiago Segura, Gabriela Sabatini and Emanuel Ginóbili, among more.
With four 30-minute episodes, the series will try to explain what is the spell that makes Mafalda a phenomenon that transcends borders and generations. After passing through the Canneseries Festival Last April, it had a preview this Sunday at 8 p.m. el canal National Geographic -with a weekly chapter-, to be released in full on streaming this Wednesday the 27th.
Q: What does Mafalda mean to you? What motivated you to participate in this project?
Lorena Muñoz: There are some projects that are more from the heart and others that are hiring; I make that distinction a little and although luckily I have the possibility to choose and I have a lot of work, there are some that are more loved than others. And this is a project that occupies a very important space in my heart, in my life, because Mafalda accompanied me throughout my childhood, and she also accompanied my children’s childhood. I read to them and then they also had the opportunity to choose and continue reading themselves.
I’m from ’72, so I come a little after Quino started with this work. I live a couple of blocks from where he lived when he created Mafalda, in Defensa and Chile, and for me it is very shocking, very exciting to pass by there, like I sometimes feel that we share the neighborhood, that he walked through the same places .
I would like to go up to that apartment to look out the window and see what the point of view was that he had while he wrote, while he was inspired.
Q: Why do you think that Mafalda so powerfully challenges different generations in different times and in different cultures?
LM: For me because it is magical; there is something to that. Why did this happen with Mafalda at an international level, when in reality she is so local, and not only local but she is very Buenos Aires? The number of countries in the world in which it has been published and translated into I don’t know how many languages is impressive. I think it has to do a little with that gift of humanity, with the fact that we see ourselves reflected; Mafalda is very empathetic, we all see ourselves reflected in that little girl and in that world that she generates.
Q: Quino created Mafalda but his genius did not end there. Everything he has done has a tremendous subtlety, irony, validity. What did you learn about him working on this project?
LM: What excites me most about him is that I have the feeling of knowing him. I didn’t know him personally; all I see are files of him and I also know him from his work, which is a good way to get to know someone.
I believe that film directors and cartoonists have strong points of contact as well, there is a line, a very weak border between the two areas. In fact, something I’m left with that I love is that he said that before sitting down to draw he looked at where he was going to put the camera. Very interesting.
Q: What struck you?
LM: That he had a certain shyness, and that shyness I think was that he was saving himself for observation. Instead of talking and showing and exposing yourself, what you are doing is listening and analyzing the context and the world. He is an incredible artist with a huge inner world and a lot of introspection too.
Q: In the series there are testimonies from cartoonists from younger generations, today they are also heroes of the genre. What did you notice in his eyes? How is Quino seen by his colleagues?
LM: For me, what he left in them and in everyone is a point of nostalgia, because he is no longer here and when we started this series he was alive, so there is something nostalgic there, although for me it is a pride that he accompanied this process at least in its project stage.
What I see in everyone’s eyes is a lot of respect and admiration. The way they talk about him is really with a lot of respect, and they treat him like a teacher and it seems to me that it has to do with the legacy that he has left to everyone.
Nicolás Biederman/Télam